The Curse review

By Simon Thompson

Writer/director Kenichi Ugana’s The Curse is a movie that, while containing some fantastic visuals, sadly falls flat in other key areas. Although Ugana does create an unsettling atmosphere, the story and characters that surround it aren’t strong enough for you to become fully invested in its narrative. 

The movie follows Riko (Yukino Kaizu) a salon receptionist who decides to investigate the shocking and violent death of her friend. In a bid for answers she begins looking through her deceased friend’s social media posts, finding an alarming pattern. As it becomes clear that these posts are a malevolent supernatural phenom, Riko travels all the way from Japan to Taiwan to destroy the curse at its source before it does any more damage. 

Ugana has a great imagination when it comes to bumping people off. Many of the death scenes in this movie involve highly creative kills which resemble something out of a Junji Ito panel or the deepest recesses of 1980s David Cronenberg’s mind. Ugana intelligently uses sound cues which misdirect you to what is coming, making the gruesome death scenes that bit more effective. 

The script, however, is really what lets this movie down. The plot consists of character and story tropes that you’ve seen done a thousand times before by better movies such as the original version of The Ring (1998), the Evil Dead Trilogy, or John Carpenter’s Prince Of Darkness. Many of the characters, including the protagonist Riko, are paper thin and lack any kind of interesting personal qualities to make them stand out, which means you care less about them surviving as a result. 

There are some somewhat interesting observations about the nature of social media, namely the pressure it puts on people to be perfect in every facet of their lives within Ugana’s script, but unfortunately it beats you over the head with them so repetitively that they lose all freshness. 

Overall if you’re a gore junky and want to see some well-crafted horror violence you could definitely do a hell of a lot worse than The Curse. If however, you’re looking for a horror movie that marries up gore with a substantive and interesting story, then it’s best to give this movie a miss. 

The Curse is on UK, Ireland, Australia and New Zealand digital platforms 13 July.